Finding Darkness

Chapter 29 Shooting Back

"Captain, we've got atmosphere venting from decks three hundred and twelve to six hundred and fifty-three." Joshua told Captain Prey as he passed his fighter over the damaged portion of the nest.

"I am aware of that, officer. The hit was taken in the uninhabited portion of the ship and damage control has already sealed off that section from the rest of the ship. Repair drones have been dispatched to effect repairs. Just get your men back aboard. Those two alien cruisers may be in pursuit."

"Rodger that sir." Joshua but his fighter into a high degree turn into the landing pattern and took his hands off the controls.

At close to ten times the speed of sound, Joshua's fighter controls were taken by Central. With computer precision, it maneuvered the craft in through the atmospheric shield and into the vast hangar bay. Almost six hundred acres in size, the single hanger bay into which he flew was bigger by far than any hanger, any vessel built by man. The first time he'd seen one, his eyes couldn't take in the vastness of the space. From one side to the other was a distance almost too wide for the human eye to see. People standing on one side were visible as nothing but tiny dots standing on a huge steel expanse, and this was only one hanger within a craft that sported over seven hundred of them.

Touching down in seconds, Joshua disengaged his suit from the fighter's systems and lept out of the craft's cockpit. His canopy went flying into the ceiling, but he was out of the hanger before it hit the floor. He was needed in damage control.

"Captain, I have two warp signatures closing on our position. One will be here in five minutes, seventeen seconds, the other four minutes behind that." Centrals calm voice sounded throughout the bridge.

"Can you give us a reentry point for the first of them?" Captain Prey asked.

"To within a few degrees, yes. Anything more than that, I can not guaranty."

"That will have to do. Mr Jenkins, once Central has those coordinates, lock the main starboard cannons on them and prepare to fire."

"Aye, Sir."

The nest floated in the vastness of interstellar space.

A nebula off to starboard painted space the color of blood. Then off in that same direction, space itself distorted, rippling outward in a series of concentric waves. In an instant, where nothing had been before, the Rougarian fleet carrier Salmez now floated.

The carrier's captain, though one of the most experienced in their fleet, had made a fatal error. In the rush of battle, seeing what he took as a crippling hit on his enemy, he had not waited before jumping after his foe. Prier battles had long ago shown that one should never, ever jump blindly after an enemy until you could determine what condition they were in. Even then, any jump should be made far enough away from their position as to make a surprise attack out of the question. The kind of attack he had just blundered into.

Any capital ship moving into the slip stream that is jump space has to drop its shields to funnel that power into the engineering spaces. The consequences are that when it exits, those same shields had to be recharged, which could take as many as thirty minutes. When the Salmez exited into real space, it was a cold target. None of its defensive systems were operational, neither were its cannons ready to fire. So when the nest began its cannonade, the Rougarian carrier had no way to fight back.

"Fire!" At the Captain's order, seven huge energy rounds shot from equally immense barrels.

The first three were wide of their target, sailing high and wide of the target. The next four found their target, carving large hunks off the enemy vessel. With its shields down, the huge craft, even if less than half the nest's size, took frightful damage from just the first four shots. The next salvo was concentrated in one area. The first three shots tore the armor from the hull, allowing the next four to tear deep into the hull.